on Google Preferred Source Google News Link copied to clipboard By Sam Nelson Published Sep 12, 2026, 4:00 AM EDT Fall Preview The twisted fairy tale steps focuses on Cinderella’s misunderstood stepsister
Image: Netflix Animation Studios Sign in to your Polygon.com account Add Us Add on Google Preferred Source Google News Like Like follow Follow followed Followed Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap Alyce Tzue always loved fairy tales, but growing up as the only Asian kid in a homogeneous community in New Jersey, she worried she would never find her happily ever after. Instead of seeing herself in Cinderella, Tzue wondered why her stepsisters didn’t get their own magic. Now she’s teaming up with Raya and the Last Dragon co-director John Ripa to tell their story as co-director of the Netflix animated movie Steps .
"There really is no one Cinderella story," Ripa told Polygon in an interview at Annecy Festival . "A Chinese version introduced the stepmother, and the Italian version introduced the stepsisters."
Steps brings all that history together and gives it a modern update.
"There are certain things the audience wants to see. We were able to take some of these iconic canon moments and give it a little twist and show it from every perspective."
Steps follows Cinderella’s misunderstood stepsister Lilith (Ali Wong). After watching the Fairy Godmother (Bette Midler) give Cinderella (Amanda Seyfried) a dress, carriage, and glass slippers, Lilith tries to get some magic of her own. She accidentally turns her sister Margot (Stephanie Hsu) into a frog, causing chaos in the kingdom.
Turning the fairytale's traditional villain into an unconventional protagonist isn't just a fun twist for Tzue. It's also personal.
“She comes into this fairytale world of hope with lofty dreams of being able to live harmoniously with everyone,” Tzue says. “The sense of being initially rejected deeply resonates with me. I would say Lilith is braver than I ever was. She has this rebellious attitude, but, of course, you find that spiky exterior is just a defense mechanism. I had my own defense mechanism of retreating into my books and art. She’s kind of aspirational. I wish I was a little bit more like her when I was younger.”
Image: Netflix Animation Studios Cinderella and Lilith then have to team up to undo the spell and stop the scheming mean girl Priscilla (Nikki Glaser) from taking over the kingdom.
“Priscilla is someone who wishes she was like Cinderella,” Tzue says. “In a kingdom that elevates just one sort of symbol of perfection, that can create someone like Lilith, who’s the outcast, and someone like Priscilla, who is driven by the sense of insecurity to kind of be evil.”
Image: Netflix Animation Studios The film’s look is inspired by the French Rococo movement and the French version of Cinderella, Cendrillon . It uses a pastel color palette to represent conformity, but Cinderella and Lilith encounter bolder, more natural colors as they explore outside the borders of the kingdom. Cinderella’s stepsisters are typically described as ugly, and Tzue avoids narrow interpretations of what beauty is.
“We want to lean into a diversity of design in the female characters to make sure they don’t all have the same face shape or the same body shape,” she says. “We’ve been very conscious to make sure that the designs reflect the diversity of…